Although I’m really not a fan of what’s been going on in Russia ahead of the Winter Games, I love the Olympics in general, so imagine how excited I was when I found out the Olympic torch was traveling to space! What I didn’t know was that Olympic torches have actually gone to space before (in 1996 and 2000). However, this is the first time one has gone on a spacewalk. Due to perfectly understandable safety concerns, the torch was not lit during this leg of its trip.

The torch relay for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games started on September 29^th, with NHL superstar Alex Ovechkin being the first Russian to carry the flame. (If you have time, check out the video in this link. It includes a portion of the elaborate flame-lighting ceremony in Olympia by Greeks dressed in ancient garb.)

The torch was on board as the three astronauts (a Russian, an American and a Japanese) of Expedition 38/39 travelled to the ISS on November 7th. On November 9th, the two Russian members of Expedition 37/38 took the torch outside the station for a spacewalk. (And yes, the torch was tethered to prevent it from floating away.)

During this spacewalk, the two astronauts also performed routine maintenance.

The torch came back to Earth on November 10th with American Karen Nyberg, Italian Luca Parmitano, and Russian commander Fyodor Yurchikhin as they came down from their six month stay on the ISS, having completed their portions of Expeditions 36 and 37.

Under normal circumstances, these three astronauts would have come down before the three news astronauts went up. Since the torch needed to be carried, this order was reversed. So for a few days, the station had nine residents instead of the typical six.

Apparently, these nine astronauts (with four nations represented between them) passed the torch along to one another in their own version of a torch relay. Sounds pretty awesome!